


Better than a Cloak

by Tabithian



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim hears Roy. He hears the words “It's like the Unternet, only more fucked up,” and “Jason” and “That absolute <i>fucker</i>.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better than a Cloak

**Author's Note:**

> [Because reasons.](http://tabithian.tumblr.com/post/34430434189/malformalady-a-fox-sleeps-on-a-headstone-in)

Tim hears Roy. He hears the words “It's like the Unternet, only more fucked up,” and “Jason” and “That absolute _fucker_.”

He sees Kory, Lian in her arms and Roy tired and haggard and at the end of his rope.

“Why me?”

Roy just looks at him. “Do you really want an answer?”

Tim sighs, looking at Jason's body. Still but for the rise and fall of his chest. The steady beep of the heart monitor background noise.

“Idiot,” Tim says.

********

_“It's a simple mission, in and out. We'll be back in time to pick you up from the airport.”_

_“Jason - “_

_“Trust me.”_

********

Tim is. Tim is helpless, barefoot and wearing the clothes he'd had on under the Robin suit the day his father was killed. (The only thing new is the pendant on a chain around his neck. Warm, something like a heartbeat to it, _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub_.)

There's a cold wind cutting through the cemetery, several inches of snow already on the ground. Quiet, eerie, in the way things are on a winter night. Moon high and full in the sky, ominous.

He rubs his arms for warmth – unnecessary. He feels the cold, bitter, cruel, but it just that. He feels it, his mind telling him it's cold, his body will die if he doesn't do something, but. But his fingers stay flesh colored, don't go blue and worse with the dropping temperature.

_Like the Unternet, only more fucked up._

It's not inconceivable he could die here, if his brain puts up a convincing enough argument for hypothermia, but.

Tim has a mission. That first, then he'll see.

********

_“So Roy says there's a computer thing that might be bad.”_

_“What? Jason - “_

_“Something about_ The Matrix _?”_

_“If anyone offers you pills, say no,” Tim advises, and grins at Jason's laughter._

********

There's a fox.

There's a fox and it's sleeping on a headstone and Tim.

_Like the Unternet, but more fucked up._

It's a fear, reasonable, of Tim's. 

The life they lead isn't one to let them grow old together. It's one that's more likely to kill them young, and has already in Jason's case.

Tim doesn't think he'll get another do-over.

“Jason?”

Symbolism.

In the pendant around Tim's neck, a sleek black dragon clutching an egg a distinct shade of blue (Robin's egg blue) with a heartbeat not his own in its claws.

A fox sleeping on a headstone in a cemetery in the dead of winter.

The fox opens its eyes and looks at Tim.

********

_“You still on track to head out here?”_

_Tim smiles, surveying his bed and the items spread over it. Clothes for the trip, toiletries. His laptop and its accessories (a spare battery, wall charger, various cables). His utility belt and_ its _accessories (proscribed all of them, it'll be a challenge getting them through airport security) ._

_“My flight leaves tomorrow morning. Try to stay out of trouble until then, okay?”_

********

“ _Jason_ ,” Tim says, closing the distance between them. 

Jason yawns, tongue curling around sharp canines, and rolls to his feet. He cocks his head to the side when Tim stops in front of him, and sits. His tail, obscuring the engraving on the headstone wraps neatly around his feet. 

Tim's eyes dart to the front of the headstone, and for a moment the steady pulsing warmth of the pendant falters.

 _Jason Peter Todd_ , Tim reads, _Beloved son and brother_.

Tim jerks his eyes back to Jason's face before he reads the dates. (Now, or years before, he doesn't want to know.)

Jason whines, low, ears going back.

“Ready to go home?” Tim asks, his own heart racing a counterpoint to the steady _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub_ of the pendant against his chest.

Jason snorts, lifting a paw to prod at Tim's chest, nails catching lightly on the pendant.

********

_“So I was thinking,” Jason says. “Since you've got a layover in town, why don't we meet for dinner or something?”_

_Tim looks at the calendar on the wall. Fluffy kittens and puppies, a gift from Dick because he's Dick and Tim's given up on questioning things like that._

_Tomorrow's date has a big red heart around it because Dick is Dick is Dick._

_“That sounds pretty nice, actually,” Tim says, and grins at the soft exhalation of relief he can hear over the line._

********

 _Like the Unternet, but more fucked up_ apparently means terrible symbolism and horrible memories being dragged back into the light. 

Tim can handle that, though, as long as - 

He pulls the pendant off and carefully hangs it around Jason's neck, careful of his ears. 

Jason shakes his head, the pendant's chain settling into the thick red fur. Tim can feel the pulse, Jason's heartbeat, _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub_.

“Come on, Jason, time to head back.”

There's a _crack_ the egg splitting down the middle, light shining from it. Robin's egg blue to green to yellow to _black_

********

_“Babs said you had a mission out this way with the Titans?”_

_Tim smiles, scrolling down for flight times. “Something she wants us to look into,” he says, and doesn't wonder at the timing._

_“You in a rush?”_

_Jason's trying for casual, non-nonchalant, but._

_Tim clicks on a link for more information about the flight. Lay-overs, connecting flights._

_“I think I can afford to spend a few hours in town.”_

********

“Fuck off, Harper, I'm fine.”

Tim isn't sure he is – he can still feel the biting cold, his mind telling him he should have died. His mind calling up the smell of blood, rich and choking, the helplessness he'd felt more chilling than anything that program could have conjured up.

 _Jason's grave_.

“Jason.”

Jason looks at him, hand coming to rest over his chest where the pendant had cracked open. Spilling light and warmth and ripping them back the real world, the beat of Jason's heart a steady, constant rhythm guiding them back.

Jason growls, accepting Roy's help in sitting up as Kory assists Tim. Lian hovers at the edge of the room, uncertain, worried. 

“Come here, Arrow-brat,” Jason huffs, and she darts over to slip into the bed with him, burrowing into his side. 

Roy smiles tightly and Jason grumps, mussing her hair with a clumsy hand. 

********

_“I've got a mission for you, Red Robin.”_

_“Oh?”_

_“You're going to need plane tickets.”_

********

“This isn't what I had in mind when I asked you to dinner, exactly.” Jason pokes at the bland but nutritious hospital food dispiritedly.

Tim eyes his own food warily. “I figured.”

There's a beat of silence, then two, then three.

“So - “

“Happy anniversary,” Tim says, cutting Jason off.

It's terrible timing, both of them in the hospital overnight for observation - “exhibiting signs of hypothermia” and “his levels are all over the place” and “what happened to the two of you?”

Jason _looks_ at him. “You ever going to tell me what you saw in there?”

He knows it's bad, terrible because that's what that place was supposed to be. An experimental form of prison, like locking someone's mind away and letting their body waste away was a humane solution. 

“Maybe,” Tim says. He doubts it. “Later.” Never.

Jason sighs. “Fucking terrible excuse for an anniversary.”

Tim won't argue that one. “Better than last year's.” What with the alien invasion forces and all.

Jason laughs, warm and real and _there_ , and Tim finally, finally feels the air start to clear, the chill fading from his bones.


End file.
